My cuz gave me his comp because he got the blu screen of death xp was on it can i format the hd with

he told me he got a virus on it i checked everything in the cpu its fine he bought it in 2004 the warranty ran out its a venture s519 intel pen 4 3.06ghz processor 80gig sata hd 52x cdrw/dvd combo gigabit nic+modem key+mouse+19 inch monitor he lost the xp disc i would like to put either win 2000 or win 98se he also gave me all his games software and his antivirus software

My cuz gave me his comp because he got the blu screen of death xp was on it can i format the hd with another sinternet security software

Of course you can.

The tutorial from Internet_Professors answer is a good place to start if you don't know what you are doing, and if you were already running win98.

Look for the part that starts with

First make a Startup Disk (Boot Disk): To create a Startup Disk, click the Add/Remove Programs icon in Windows Me/98 Control Panel. WebTechGeek.com

for the parts relevant to your case. You will have to go back up the page to find out how to make the boot disk, and if you are creating the boot disk from winXP, then you will have difficulty placing fdisk on the startup disk.

My recommendation would be to go to your cuzs, and ask him/her to put the your hard drive into their computer, and for them, or you, to format the drive as a FAT32 drive, then you will be able to install win98se from the disk.